The present invention relates to the processing of food products and more particularly to the further processing of cooked meat products.
The processed meat industry is a large and growing portion of the total food packaging market.
"Processed meats" includes luncheon meats, smoked meat products, reconstituted and other forms of meat which are often packaged and sometimes repackaged, and also often cooked before shipping to a point of sale.
Cooking containers, typically thermoplastic bags such as the CN bags available from W. R. Grace & Co.-Conn. through its Cryovac Division, are often used in packaging and cooking processed meats.
A typical practice in the processed meats industry is to strip the cook-in bag from the processed meat after cooking, followed by some form of further processing. This further processing can include the addition of colorants and seasonings, slicing of the processed meat product to smaller portions, glazing and the like.
While these further processing procedures are often done to enhance the value and marketability of the processed meat products, they can also result in undesirable recontamination of the product surface with microrganisms which the cooking process would have typically destroyed.
The inventor has found that by taking such reprocessed cooked meats or other types of processed meat items, and placing them in a heat tolerant container such as a cooking bag, and exposing the repackaged product to a heat treatment of the product surface, a reduction in the bacterial load which was reintroduced to the product surface is obtained.
Reprocessing can involve submerging the resurfaced product in hot water (160.degree. F. to 205.degree. F.), or a comparable medium for dwell times ranging from 30 seconds to 10 minutes.